“George and the team” will be back, but…

That’s what many media have been wondering following TEN’s 2012 Programming Launch two weeks ago.

TEN confirmed the show would return, but as The Australian notes today, TEN’s Press Release was astutely worded: “George and the 6:30 team will be back in 2012”. Of all the shows detailed on the release, it was the only one not named as its full title in bold type.

Last week programming Chief David Mott told The Age, ”I’m not always happy with the content. Some days I am but some days I think they’ve missed a beat. Some days I think we’re too heavy on Afghanistan and we need to be a little more populist with content. We don’t want diet-fad stories but we need to be a little more accessible.”

The Carl Katter scoop last week netted the show some of its best publicity in weeks, but the figures didn’t reflect it, mainly because there was little advance publicity. Presumably the scoop interview fell into their lap late in the proceedings.

Recently the show has also trialled Hamish MacDonald in the host seat but again the numbers didn’t show any marked improvement. Despite MacDonald being considered a good performer, it may take more sustained change for that to happen.

Another option on host switcheroos could be Hugh Riminton, who is well known to audiences for his years with TEN and Nine.

If Negus were to vacate the host chair and return to his former stomping ground of filing stories, it wouldn’t be unprecedented. Mike Munro has recently left the hosting to Chris Bath on Sunday Night, preferring to get back to journalism rather than reading the autocue.

Time will tell whether 6:30 will still be with or without George Negus as host.

David why was there no mention on this site of Charlie Pickering interviewing David Hicks? I would have thought it was a bigger scoop than Carl Katter. It was in the papers on the weekend and promoted. I thought it was a great interview and shows why 7PM is such a better news/current affairs show than Negus, ACA and TT

Spike: Firstly it’s worth remembering the site is a personal blog. I think people often forget this point, so I write almost entirely about shows and issues that resonate with me. Secondly I can’t see every show. I was out tonight at a function and TEN gave me no advance knowledge of the Hicks interview. You can see by the timestamp on this comment I work pretty hard to stay across everything, but there are limits….

the problem with this rubbish is A:the host(to old)B the program as a whole and C it doesn’t fit in with tens demographic would be better suited to once a week perhaps on sun nights at 6.30 perhaps the powers that be are getting a slap of karma over the treatment of Neighbours!

I like George…if he was not there…prefer Hugh Rimminton…..
And yes…you only have to look at the rating numbers…to realise that most tv viewers seem to prefer bra, diet, grocery prices stories of TT and AC…..
We who do not….appear to be…sadly….in the minority.

Yes a better 6.00pm lead in is required
Can they please get celebrity squares with Woopy Goldberg to fill a void
Have watched it in the us or even Jeapordy would be a nice change.
90 min news is way over the top.

Hamish is easy on the eyes but something tells me he himself would prefer to be out there getting the stories. I particularly enjoy when he reports from the middle east and you see that dark blonde chest hair poking through

What about Tracey Curro as host? There was a time 7pm were utilizing her quite a bit and now we haven’t seen much of her.

In regards to the Carl Katter scoop I’m sure it was promoted correctly. George is also popping up and plugging his show during News at 5 which has twice the audience of 6.30. I think the problem is most people are switching over at 6pm and simply aren’t bothered in switching back. Put an alternative on at 6pm to keep the audience held and act as a bigger lead in to George. Does Nine still have the rights to Sale of the Century? If not then bring that back since TEN are in the habit of reviving old shows

Unfortunetly for the show viewers like myself who want the actuall current affairs instead of the non-current affairs which the other two dish up are in short supply. this is probably because of the state of our society just wanting the tabloid trash not actuall news. I mean how do you think Rupert Murdoch became so powerful it certainly isnt because of credible journalism nor was it because of actuall news. As long as people continue to lap up trash like TT and ACA, shows like 6.30 with George Negus will continue to flounder in the rating no matter how good and important the stories are and no matter how much they try to enlighten the average australian.

they have no credibility. They were supposed to be a point of difference to TT and ACA. Now they are slowly becomming those 2 shows. As much as people hate TT and ACA, the are popular and rate well. Simple.

I quite like the show, but I agree with David Mott in that it often does miss its mark somehow and that it should have more populist content, though not of the diet fad or miracle bra variety. I like George Negus but I don’t think he is a particularly stellar host. I think he is much better as a journalist filing stories. Of the three, I like Hugh Riminton best as host. The show definitely has legs but it needs a bit of tweaking re its content.